Monday, March 31, 2008

Solomon

This afternoon Solomon began to demonstrate severe weakness in his hindquarters after our walk and it's grown worse as the evening's gone along. I am pretty sure he has a slipped disc, but I don't know the severity of it yet. German Shepherds are so prone to this that they call it German Shepherd Syndrome. In humans, most of the time it's a matter of bed rest. In dogs it's a lot more serious. What complicates things further is that he's nine years old (that's about sixty in people years) which means the damage may extensive, he just hasn't presented anything until now.

We're going to the vet in the morning. I have no idea how we're going to afford this.

It kind of goes with having multiple pets--and nearly all of them rescues.

The biggest problem is that we've had recently is with more than one of them getting old at the same time. Random was seventeen. Solomon is nine. Oscar, the bloodhound-mix, is right behind him (Bloodhounds don't live very long).

I saved Solomon from sure death nine years ago, but the return was ten-fold; he saved me in a hundred more ways.

Author of Sing

He could hear them, owl, rats, cats, foxes and woman, winged child breathing. All of them soulless husks. Yes.That was what he meant.Soulless. Sleep was an absence of soul, a light out in the attic and nobody home. He knew--death entered a little more with each dawn, just before the waking.Crept in so's nobody'd notice it, catch it and stop it. Not bold, death--but a weasel prowling. It took its time, but it came in all the same.